Prices of basics such as oil and wheat are shooting up and shortages are showing on supermarket shelves in Lebanon, Somalia and Egypt
When Lebanon’s Muslims sat down to their first iftar of Ramadan tonight, the meal in front of them will have cost significantly more than it did six weeks ago.
Continue reading...Israeli police say the men were armed and were ‘killed in a shootout’ after tensions rise in the past week
Israeli security forces have killed three Palestinian gunmen in the occupied West Bank, Israeli police said.
There was no immediate comment from Palestinian officials. The Israeli police said the men were armed and were “killed in a shootout,” in the pre-dawn incident on Saturday.
Continue reading...Agreement comes after significant escalation in bloody conflict between Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels
Yemen’s warring sides have accepted a two-month truce, starting with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, according to the UN envoy to the country.
Hans Grundberg announced the agreement from Amman, Jordan, after meeting separately with both sides in the country’s brutal civil war. He said he hoped the truce would be renewed after two months.
Continue reading...Exclusive: agencies write letter to government after learning home secretary is pushing for designation
Yemen could be afflicted by an even worse humanitarian catastrophe if the UK government goes ahead with a plan to designate the Houthi rebels as a terrorist group, leading aid agencies have warned cabinet ministers in a letter.
The 11 UK agencies are some of those most active in Yemen, and include Save the Children, Care, the International Rescue Committee and Islamic Relief.
Continue reading...Fatima al-Masri, a 19-month-old with a hole in her heart, waited five months for Israel to issue a permit allowing her to travel for treatment
A 19-month-old child has died in Gaza after waiting for five months for Israel to grant her permission to leave the blockaded enclave for treatment.
Human right groups said Israel’s blockade of Gaza was responsible for the death of Fatima al-Masri, who was diagnosed last year with a hole in the heart and who died on Friday.
Continue reading...Istanbul is seeking to mend ties with Saudi Arabia to bolster a struggling economy as it looks for foreign trade
A Turkish prosecutor has moved to end the trial of the killers of Jamal Khashoggi nearly four years after aides to Saudi Arabia’a Crown Prince murdered and dismembered the dissident in the Kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul, shelving the chance of convictions as Ankara seeks to mend ties with Riyadh.
The move has been broadly seen as a political offering ahead of a mooted visit by Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Saudi Arabia in search of renewed trade and investment to boost Ankara’s ailing economy.
Continue reading...Guardian investigation finds labourers – including those on World Cup-related projects – were left with huge debts
Low-wage migrant workers have been forced to pay billions of dollars in recruitment fees to secure their jobs in World Cup host nation Qatar over the past decade, a Guardian investigation has found.
Bangladeshi men migrating to Qatar are likely to have paid about $1.5bn (£1.14bn) in fees, and possibly as high as $2bn, between 2011 and 2020. Nepali men are estimated to have paid around $320m, and possibly more than $400m, in the four years between mid-2015 to mid-2019.
Continue reading...Kais Saied acts after parliament votes to repeal decrees he used to assume near total power
Tunisia’s president, Kais Saied, has issued a decree dissolving parliament, which has been suspended since last year, after it defied him by voting to repeal decrees he had used to assume near total power.
Speaking after an online session of more than half the parliament members, their first since he suspended the chamber in July, Saied accused them of a failed coup and a conspiracy against state security and ordered investigations into them.
Continue reading...West bank raid comes two days after a Palestinian shot and killed five people in central Israel
Israeli forces have raided a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, setting off a gun battle in which two Palestinians were killed and more than a dozen were wounded, the Palestinian health ministry said.
In a separate incident, a Palestinian stabbed a 28-year-old Israeli man on a bus in the West Bank before being killed by a bystander, the Israeli military said. The Magen David Adom emergency service said the stabbing victim was treated and taken to hospital.
Continue reading...UK Export Finance used £5.24bn of taxpayer money to fund overseas energy and infrastructure ventures – despite its own review raising concerns
The British government has provided more than £5bn in the past three years to overseas energy and infrastructure projects linked to labour abuses and environmental damage, according to documents and interviews with workers.
The funding – a combination of loans and guarantees – comes from the government’s export credit agency, UK Export Finance (UKEF), a government department to help UK companies access business contracts overseas.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Guardian data investigation finds flurry of movement after invasion of Ukraine, with many flights to UAE
Private jets linked to Russian oligarchs and officials appeared to continue flying into and out of EU and UK airports despite flight bans and sanctions imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a Guardian data investigation found.
The investigation, in collaboration with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), identified and tracked jets linked to sanctioned businesspeople and officials including Roman Abramovich, Alisher Usmanov and Igor Shuvalov, a former Russian deputy prime minister.
Continue reading...Security cabinet in emergency talks ahead of Ramadan, Passover and Easter celebrations
Israel’s prime minister has called on citizens with gun licences to arm themselves after the bloodiest attack in years in greater Tel Aviv, which marked the third such killings spree in the Jewish state in a week.
“What is expected of you, Israeli citizens? Vigilance and responsibility,” the country’s far-right leader, Naftali Bennett, said in a video statement on Wednesday evening. “Whoever has a gun licence, this is the time to carry it.”
Continue reading...Edinburgh-based firm agrees to £571m offer that will create world’s largest airport services firm
Executives at the British aviation services company John Menzies have accepted a £571m takeover deal from a Kuwaiti rival, after rebuffing three previous offers.
A subsidiary of Agility Public Warehousing had made the bid more than a month ago, which was conditional at the time, although the John Menzies board said it would accept the offer.
Continue reading...Reports say suspected Arab gunman killed at least five people in Bnei Brak, east of Tel Aviv, before he was fatally shot
Israeli paramedics have said at least five people were killed in a shooting attack in a Tel Aviv suburb, in the third such incident in less than a week.
Amateur video broadcast on Israeli television stations showed a man dressed in black and pointing an assault rifle walking down a street in Bnei Brak, a Jewish ultra-Orthodox city east of Israel’s commercial capital.
Continue reading...Tri-national was excluded from deal leading to release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori
Morad Tahbaz, the British-Iranian left behind when two others were released from Iranian detention a fortnight ago, has ended a nine-day hunger strike at the pleading of his family, his daughter has said.
He remains in jail in Tehran contrary to an agreement the British claimed it had struck with the Iranians.
Continue reading...Police say two terrorists were shot dead after they began firing at police in city of Hadera, as Israel hosts envoys from four Arab states
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for an attack in which two Israeli police were killed in the northern city of Hadera on Sunday. The claim was made in a statement posted on its Telegram account.
Police said that “two terrorists arrived at Herbert Samuel Street in Hadera, and began shooting at a police force there,” resulting in two deaths.
Continue reading...Antony Blnken seeks to reassure Israel and Gulf allies ahead of possible renewal of nuclear deal
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has sought to reassure Israel and its Gulf allies that Iran will never acquire atomic weapons, ahead of the possible renewal of the nuclear deal with Tehran.
“When it comes to the most important element, we see eye to eye,” Blinken said at a news conference on Sunday with Israel’s foreign minister, Yair Lapid. “We are both committed, both determined, that Iran will never acquire a nuclear weapon.”
Continue reading...UN chief António Guterres calls for ‘restraint’ on all sides in seven-year conflict
UN chief António Guterres on Saturday condemned an exchange of attacks between Yemen’s Houthi rebels and the Saudi-led coalition, calling for “restraint” on all sides in the seven-year conflict.
“The secretary-general strongly condemns the recent escalation of the conflict in Yemen,” UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement Saturday.
Continue reading...Ukraine crisis is uniting democracies in Europe and Pacific but complicating relationships with China, India and Gulf states
“Decide who you are with” Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the European council, pointing to a choice that is becoming increasingly hard to avoid, as the sheer violence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine crystallises the division of the world into two camps.
The camp that stands with Russians is becoming easier to define with every passing day of the war. The colour-coded scoreboard at the UN general assembly in recent weeks, recording the votes on resolutions deploring the attack and calling for a ceasefire, could not have been clearer.
Continue reading...F1 has confirmed the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix will go ahead as planned after Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for a missile attack on an oil facility less than 10 miles from the circuit. But in a four-hour meeting with drivers that lasted until well past midnight local time on Saturday, several are believed to have voiced their concerns to F1’s chief executive, Stefano Domenicali, with some lingering doubts over whether the race will still take place.
Discussions continued until 2.30am local time, over four hours after Domenicali had made assurances that all was well. Organisers the Saudi Motorsport Company had earlier confirmed that it would go ahead after all 10 team principals agreed to race. “We are aware of the attack on the Aramco distribution station in Jeddah earlier this afternoon and remain in contact with the Saudi security authorities, as well as F1 and the FIA, to ensure all necessary security and safety measures continue to be implemented, to guarantee the safety of all visitors to the Formula One Saudi Arabian Grand Prix as well as the drivers, teams and stakeholders,” read a statement.
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